Since school will be over in less than 2 weeks and I will be graduating, then heading off to college I figured that I better get started on my summer project. I have decided that I want to make a fully autonomous vehicle. I have been heavily debating whether I want to make it an aerial vehicle such as a multi-copter or a land vehicle. After much deliberation I have decided on a land vehicle because I already have a really built up chassis and a multicopter would be too expensive for now.

My goals for this project:

Auto navigate to a set GPS coordinatesDo something at a set GPS coordinatesAuto return to homeSwitch between auto and manual control with the 3rd channel button on the transmitterObject avoidanceAutomatically perform a maximum speed testHave a "drag race" mode that will keep the car tracking in a straight line and keep a distance from the car next to itLog GPS position and speed, g forces, angles"Launch control" to help from spinning out or flipping over when accelerating hard

I have written the code for you. Some of it anyway. I am using Ultimate GPS and Uno. It works for my boat, swamp buggy, wing, quadcopter. Let me clean it up a bit. There were many obstacles to overcome in the coding using interrupts. Conflicts among libraries. I wouldn't want anyone to go thru this again...

Probably the main thing you need is a slower truck. The first thing people learn,from a practical perspective, is R/C trucks and cards are usually way too fast to make a good robot. Especially autonomous. Although that's always a nice dream.

Quote

Is there anything else that I will need?

Yeah, pick just one thing off the list, and do that first. Then, pick another andadd it in. Keep going, one step at a time. By time you're 1/4 of the way through the list, you'll know where you're at.

BTW, just for reference, somewheres around 1966, Marvin Minsky assigned an undergrad student a summer project to "solve" computer vision. They still barelyknow what they're doing 50 years later.

I have written the code for you. Some of it anyway. I am using Ultimate GPS and Uno. It works for my boat, swamp buggy, wing, quadcopter. Let me clean it up a bit. There were many obstacles to overcome in the coding using interrupts. Conflicts among libraries. I wouldn't want anyone to go thru this again...

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I can't tell if you are being sarcastic or genuine. :~If you are infact being genuine then I thank you very much!

Probably the main thing you need is a slower truck. The first thing people learn,from a practical perspective, is R/C trucks and cards are usually way too fast to make a good robot. Especially autonomous. Although that's always a nice dream.

Quote

Is there anything else that I will need?

Yeah, pick just one thing off the list, and do that first. Then, pick another andadd it in. Keep going, one step at a time. By time you're 1/4 of the way through the list, you'll know where you're at.

BTW, just for reference, somewheres around 1966, Marvin Minsky assigned an undergrad student a summer project to "solve" computer vision. They still barelyknow what they're doing 50 years later.

Yeah, I couldn't tell if he was trying to be sarcastic either, ;-). Some guys are subtlethat way, and some of us have it stamped on our foreheads. "I've got 2500 pages of source code here that does exactly what you need, and you're welcome to it".

The more of this stuff you do, the more you begin to understand the amount of work it takes. Robotics is fun, but involves many areas of competence: mechanicaland electrical design, motors, sensors, fabrication, software coding, algorithms, hardware-software interfacing, plus some semblance of [weak] AI. Then, if it's also autonomous, you need deal to with software efficiency and real-time operation.But you learn a lot along the way.

I wasn't being sarcastic. Of course it doesn't do exactly what you need. It's a good starting point though. It navigates the vehicle controlling the speed when there are external factors like wind or waves. Steering to a waypoint. You can turn autopilot on and off with your R/C transmitter.

I wasn't being sarcastic. Of course it doesn't do exactly what you need. It's a good starting point though. It navigates the vehicle controlling the speed when there are external factors like wind or waves. Steering to a waypoint. You can turn autopilot on and off with your R/C transmitter.

Sorry if I sounded rude before. I have just started with playing with some example code from the GPS module and I would gladly accept any code to help me along my way. I wouldn't want to copy it anyways (where's the fun in that?) , just to learn from it.

It's still very much a work in progress. I stripped out the experimental part so as not to confuse you.The goal is to keep the speed constant, and steer in a straight line thru waves and varying wind.The difficulty is keeping the boat up on plane and preventing it from spinning out, a difficult task for a human driver.